Press releases

Legal & General completes £330m UK Pension Risk Transfer Deal

Legal & General is pleased to announce that it has entered into its first large UK pension risk transfer deal of 2016, and is competing on UK pension risk transfer deals of over £10 billion. The transaction is a buy-in, for around £330m in pension liabilities.

Kerrigan Procter, Managing Director of Legal & General Retirement, said: "In 2015 we internationalised our business, with entry into the US and European pension risk transfer markets. We entered 2016 with a strong pipeline of UK pension risk transfer business. We are currently competing on UK deals in excess of £10bn and I’m pleased that we’ve secured our first large UK deal of 2016 to add to our $65 million US Pension Risk Transfer deal in February. I’m confident we’ll build on this success over the course of 2016."

Cheryl Agius, Head of Strategic Business, Pension Risk Transfer at Legal & General, said: "This deal illustrates how we can continue to offer flexibility to our clients as they take steps to de-risk their defined benefit pension schemes in a Solvency II environment. Demand for de-risking solutions remains high and we retain a strong pipeline. We will reinsure almost all of the longevity risk of this transaction and invest the assets to back our pension promises in UK infrastructure and direct lending, including lifetime mortgages, all in line with our capital-lite model for new UK bulk annuity business."

Legal & General’s bulk annuity sales in 2015 were £1.977bn, from 63 transactions. Legal & General Retirement, which includes the pension risk transfer business, generated £639m operating profit in 2015, an increase of almost 50% over the prior year. It also implemented its capital-lite model to optimise its pensions risk transfer business under the new Solvency II regime, and expanded its panel of longevity reinsurers.

- ENDS –

For further information, please contact:

Investors:

Laura Doyle

Head of Investor Relations

020 3124 2088

Stephen Thomas

Investor Relations Manager 020 3124 2047

Media:

John Godfrey

Corporate Affairs Director

020 3124 2090

Richard King

Head of Group Corporate Communications

020 3124 2095

Notes to editors:

Legal & General Group Plc

Established in 1836, Legal & General is a leading provider of insurance, savings and investment management products in the UK. The Group has a market capitalisation of £14.9bn (as at 31st December 2015) and is responsible for investing £746bn worldwide (as at 31st December 2015) on behalf of investors, policyholders and shareholders. Legal & General has over seven million customers in the UK for life assurance, pensions, investments and general insurance plans and over one million customers in the US who rely on us for life assurance. In 2015, Legal & General's operating profit (on the IFRS basis) was £1,455m and earnings per share were 18.58p for the period, an increase of 14% and 11% respectively.